New books about the Roman Legions.

Philip Matyszak just published his new book, Legionary: The Roman Soldier's 'Unofficial' Manual. So far the book has been very interesting. The author addresses the reader as if they were about to join the Legions and this is what they need to know and expect. Matyszak is a professor of roman history at St. John's College, Oxford. For roman history enthusiasts, like me, this book is a gold mine of interesting facts about the Legions written in easy, non-academic prose. Matyszak is very informative and humorous at the same time.

Take the opening page as an example, Matyszak starts with a plea to his reader to join up. Across the top of this recruitment page, in Latin, is conscribe te militem in legionibus. pervagare orbem terrarum. inveni terras externas. congnosce miros peregrinos. eveiscera eos. (JOIN THE LEGIONS, SEE THE WORLD, TRAVEL TO FOREIGN PARTS, MEET INTERESTING AND EXOTIC PEOPLE, AND DISEMBOWEL THEM.)

Also, September of this year marks the 2000 year anniversary of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. With the interest in Roman studies on the upswing I've noticed more interest than normal in this famous battle. Harry Turtuledove has a new novel out about the battle for those interested.

And the tribute just keeps coming

I quoted Bill Kristol a while back as saying: "hypocrisy is the tribute liberals pay conservatives." Well, it appears President Obama, again, has paid more tribute to George Bush.

During Bush's presidency he was scolded by democrats, including then Senator Obama, for utilizing "signing statements." President Bush would attach a signing statement to legislation reaching his desk, stating what he disagreed with and what he'd disregard. Candidate Obama was very clear that he would end the practice. He felt, then, it was undermining the law (see video above).

What George Bush has been trying to do as part of his effort to accumulate more power in the presidency is he's been saying 'well I can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying I don't agree with this part or I don't agree with that part. I'm gonna choose to interpret it this way or that way.' That's not part of his power.

But this is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he's going along. I disagree with that. I taught the constitution for 10 years. I believe in the constitution, and I will obey the Constitution of the United States.

We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress.

This is yet another campaign promise broken and and another tribute to his predecessor.

Looking at the legislation I can understand Obama's position. He believes the Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by requiring certain actions of the President in foreign policy matters. Bush said the same exact thing. But then Senator/candidate Obama wouldn't accept that answer. Bush dealt with the Congress, as Obama now sees the wisdom in, through the use of signing statements. I can understand why Obama is utilizing the signing statement to guard what he sees as his constitutional authority in foreign policy matters. That is what Bush did and he was right too. The problem for Obama is that it's pure hypocrisy. Something I'm sure will be a political liability, along with his other tributes, in his reelection campaign. Republicans have got to be smiling.

This current signing statement is Obama's 6th since taking office. And the tribute just keeps coming...

The Best of Jaywalking

Absolutely halarious!

Bring the rain!

There are new rules for the use of air strikes in Afghanistan. Now, troops may only call in air strikes if there is the possibility of being over-run. Above is a report and a new video out of Afghanistan involving an air strike on Taliban troops.

Spoofing The 10 Commandments.

Found this video posted at TWS. Moderately funny with a very funny ending. You'll probably never forget "Principle Firebush!"

Iran: from the streets (2)

From an excellent piece by Roger Cohen:

Another green-eyed woman, Mahin, aged 52, staggered into an alley clutching her face and in tears. Then, against the urging of those around her, she limped back into the crowd moving west toward Freedom Square. Cries of “Death to the dictator!” and “We want liberty!” accompanied her.

There were people of all ages. I saw an old man on crutches, middle-aged office workers and bands of teenagers. Unlike the student revolts of 2003 and 1999, this movement is broad.

“Can’t the United Nations help us?” one woman asked me. I said I doubted that very much. “So,” she said, “we are on our own.”

The world is watching, and technology is connecting, and the West is sending what signals it can, but in the end that is true. Iranians have fought this lonely fight for a long time: to be free, to have a measure of democracy.

From the streets of Tehran

1. At the TWS blog there is video from out of Iran. Please be warned it is graphic and very tragic.

2. Here's a twitter site from someone inside Iran.

New Books

Book of the Month recommendation: The Book of Isaiah: Personal Impressions of Isaiah Berlin.

One of the greatest philosophical minds of the 20th century was Isaiah Berlin. His book, The Proper Study of Mankind (1997), made a deep impression on me. The Modern Library considers it the 17th best non-fiction book of the 20th century. The book is a collection of essays. Berlin’s insights are well reasoned, deep, and told in the prose of a superb talker. His essay on Machiavelli caused a permanent shift in my views of politics, ethics and history. This is an essay, along with the one entitle, On The Pursuit of an Ideal, that should be read and absorbed by all would be statesmen.

Say more Mr. President

President Obama was told that Iranian protestors think he hasn’t said enough about the uprising.

Obama: “...the last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States.”

While I can understand the President’s position, it seems too much of a bad gamble. The Iranian Mullahs have been using the U.S. as “a foil” for anti-western sentiment for years. We are the “great Satan” in Iran—at least officially. Anti-westernism is a standard government line. Being guided by conern for that seems, well, misguided. We have a big opportunity here. Amongst Iran’s youth—70% of the country is roughly below 35 years of age—the U.S. is quite unofficially popular. It’s the crusty older religious guys who hate America and the West. We need to capitalize on the pro-Western sentiments in that country. And we need to do it while the momentum is swinging in our direction.

The toppling of the current Iranian regime could mean an entire change in direction for Iranian politics and Middle Eastern politics in-general. Stopping Iran from becoming a nuclear power, and having the the regime that's the world’s largest supporter of terror go belly up, are both in America’s best interest. Of course there's no guarantee a new regime will be “pro-Western” per se, but there is a good chance a new regime will be less of a threat than the current one. It's the moderates waiting in the wings to take over.

This opportunity may not come again anytime in the near future. The Mullahs are becoming desperate and the military crackdown is probably coming soon.

I realize the forces at play here and the balancing act Obama is trying to maintain. But he needs to openly lean more forcibly toward those in the streets. Let's not miss this chance.

President Obama needs to say (and behind the scenes do) more in support of the protestors in Iran.

Obama removing the opposition

In his signature suave style, Obama crushes a republican fly.

Are the Iranian protestors alone?

It would be best for the world if the Iranian regime were toppled. It's hard to say where this will go but brutal measures to suppress the protests appear to have begun. Some inside Iran are asking, Is the world really aware of what's going on here? TWS blog posted an email from a Radio Farda's contact in Tehran:

I talked to a few students in Tehran (Monday morning Tehran time). They confirmed that the attack on their dormitory was brutal, destructive, and the authorities may have taken as many as 100 students with them. In Tehran, one faculty told me, the security forces had thrown some student off a building. There was an attack on a University dormitory in Isfahan as well. A similar episode happened in Shiraz a few nights ago. In last night’s attack, according to an ‘Amir Kabir Newsletter’ (I can send it to any journalist who can read Persian), security forces and others in civilian clothes were brutal: 5 students are reported in critical condition, and three were killed (including a female student). [...]

In my exchanges with them, I can’t help but be affected by their words. A question that I have heard several times is this simple one: Do the Americans know what is happening here? They don’t complaint, but they want to know if the silence is politics or indifference or… One said, I hope the diplomats in Europe don’t sell us cheap.

One comment made by a couple of them, and this is directed at people inside and outside Iran, is tough to take: ‘it seems that we are all alone.’ The Amir Kabir Newsletter says as much: as the security forces in civilian clothes attacked students in the dormitory, even as some of them were asleep, the university guards and authorities did not come to their defense and, as they faced these savages, students were left all alone.

D-Day: President Reagan's 40th Anniversary Speech

Today is the 65th anniversary of D-Day. President Reagan's 40th anniversary speech will be remembered as the best speech given commemorating this day.

We're bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we're with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

After watching this speech again it's easy to see why Reagan is a conservative icon. He gives moral force, grace and dignity, to so much conservatives hold dear.

Quote of note

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.—Winston Churchill

The best criticism of Obama's Cairo speech

President Obama's Cairo speech was a good idea. I suspect, however, little will come of it. I think reaching out to Muslim nations and trying get greater cooperation a good thing. It doesn't hurt to try. But the real problem in the Muslim world's relationship with the West, and Obama knows this, is primarily within Muslim societies. The West can adjust some of our policies, but the Muslim world needs to adjust the cultural and political tectonic plates. Getting them to actually shift and deal with these problems is very problematic if not almost impossible. My biggest criticism of the speech is that the President didn't address the real problem with Iran and the danger it poses to the security of the region and the world. But looking through a number of speech reviews, I think Steven F. Hayes has the best criticism yet:

In a speech about freedom and democracy, America and Islam, Obama glides right past the most remarkable development in the region in decades: "Iraq's democratically-elected government." He mentions it only in passing, to note that he's keeping his campaign promised to remove troops.

Iraq today is a model for many of those things Obama says he hopes to see in the region -- women right's, religious freedom, the defeat of "violent extremism," economic development and opportunity, and, yes, democracy. It's an imperfect model, to be sure, but it's a model nonetheless. And the president does himself and the country -- in particular our soldiers -- no favors by ignoring that reality. No one is asking him to defend a war he opposed. But the fact that he can even use that phrase -- Iraq's democratically-elected government -- might have caused him to acknowledge that America's intervention there, despite the tremendous difficulties, has made Iraq a country that practices many of those things that he seeks for the rest of the region.

Ralph Peters holding back again...

Ralph "take no prisoners" Peters has a must read column about GITMO in the NYP. As usual Peters is his sensitive and restrained self:

WE made one great mistake regarding Guantanamo: No terrorist should have made it that far. All but a handful of those grotesquely romanticized prisoners should have been killed on the battlefield.

The few kept alive for their intelligence value should have been interrogated secretly, then executed.

READ ON

Joe Biden again

As the TWS points out, Joe Biden may be the most effective republican spokesman yet. Joe said these words while discussing the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars of government stimulus money:

"We know some of this money is going to be wasted," Biden said during a roundtable discussion in New York with business leaders aimed at promoting the two-year stimulus plan...

"There are going to be mistakes made," said Biden. "Some people are being scammed already."

Say it isn't so Joe!

Well if that's the case Joe, and the Obama adminstration is all about accountability and transparency, I'm sure most Americans want to know whose scamming the money. Let's stop the waste and abuse!

Great confidence builder wouldn't you say.

As for republicans, at first stunned, but then over joyed (no, actually, outright cheering) that Biden kicked the ball into the wrong goal...again.

Poll shows most Americans against closing GITMO

A recent USA TODAY/Gallup poll shows a large majority of Americans oppose closing GITMO. The truth about GITMO has been lost in political grandstanding. The facility has been attacked and labeled by the mis-informed as a symbol of abuse. This is nonsense. The few isolated problems of abuse that happened at the facility were when it first opened. These problems were investigated and corrected. Since then the facility has become a model facility, which, if anything, could be argued is far too accomadating to hardened terrorists. As more and more Americans get a clearer, more accurate, picture of what is actually going on there, the more Americans do not want it closed.